This project explores the communication relationship between Canadian emergency planners, homeless service providers and homeless populations. During the literary review, which had a significant amount of content from the United States, three themes emerged. First, emergency managers rely heavily on service providers to communicate with homeless communities. Secondly, service providers require training and assistance from emergency management professionals. Thirdly, there is some uncertainty as to who is responsible for communication with homeless populations in the event of an emergency. Questionnaires were sent to both Canadian emergency managers and service providers across the country (N=30), nine were completed and returned. The data received were compared to the three themes from the literary review and it appears to be consistent. Canadian emergency planners rely heavily on service providers; some service providers need assistance in developing business continuity plans and training on what to do in the event of an emergency; and, there is some confusion as to who is actually responsible for communication with homeless communities in the event of a disaster. Recommendations include further research in order to develop a Canadian document of best practices for emergency planners across Canada.
After-action reviews have been in use for over 40 years, first by the US Military, and then adopted by many organizations or agencies to improve the learning capabilities of emergency responders to reflect, act and learn in real time. The after-action review is known by many different names and may actually be a tool that is under-utilized to convey important lessons learned as it appears that many recommendations are either being repeated or modified in the next event as they have not been institutionalized. After-action reviews are utilized by many organizations in emergency management as a way to promote a lessons-learned approach to promote organizational learning. In the realm of emergency management and preparedness the usage of after-action reviews is a structured review of the following: 1) what went well? 2) What did not go well? 3) Where are the gaps? and 4) what can be done differently next time to improve performance? This paper will examine how after-action reviews are conducted following disasters to ensure that lessons-learned and the responses to real-incidents or exercises are implemented to minimize avoidable deaths or negative economic and social consequences.
